Four things about Google Hangouts that you should know

From hidden animations to playing Pictionary, Google Hangouts is a great place to, yes, hang out.

Jul 4, 2016 13:12 IST

Google Will Shut Down Gtalk This Month, But It's Not Such A Bad ThingREUTERS/Chris Helgren

Hangouts, Google's answer to Skype that merged with Facebook's Messenger, is a pretty powerful application. Users can, for one, dial their friends' and family members' landlines from their computers at "insanely low rates," or for free if the number being dialled is in the United States or Canada. However, there are more interesting features that are sure to impress Hangouts users:

Cast Chrome Tabs

Android Police reported that Google is including a Cast option into the Chrome browser. This will soon allow users to not only share their browsers to a bigger screen wirelessly, but also share their browsers or even individual tabs through Hangouts.

Easter eggs

In typical Google style, Hangouts is no exception to Easter eggs that users can trigger for amusement. Users can stumble upon a lot of the Easter eggs as they come attached to certain regularly used greetings, such as "Happy Birthday," "Hahahahahaha," "Yay" and "LMAO." It's also possible to change the background. One of the options, Konami Code, changes the background to an idyllic meadow scene compete with a tree and a snow-capped mountain. It can be brought about by typing Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A (with the ups and downs typed out using the detection keys) followed by hitting Enter. If one's tired of the grey background that Hangouts traditionally features, then "/bikeshed" will change it to a random colour of Google's choosing.

Sketch support

Too lazy to type? Google's got you fam! Hover over the button to attach images in Hangouts and a pencil appears. Clicking on the pencil opens up a little box where users can sketch out their messages. In our experience, this also works out to be a great way to play Pictionary.

Move Hangouts to the other side

Hangouts, to many, is an indispensable part of Gmail, but its placement, to the left of the screen, is bothersome to some. Its default placement means the labels one meticulously created to file away important mails remains hidden for the most part. Here is where the "Labs" filed away under one's Gmail account's settings comes in to save the day. Labs essentially involves experimental features on Gmail. Here is where the option to move Hangouts to the other side of the screen can be found. This is one feature that needs to be moved out of Labs and into Gmail's regular features, much like "Undo Send" was.